creative facilitation - T-LAP

creative facilitation - in essence, the term describes a certain attitude rather than a specific method. From this perspective, it is rather about HOW we do what we are aiming at.

This starting point leads to a much more complex pedagogical requirement and necessary role clarification of the responsible temporary or continuous "group leader". A conventional manual of methodology for practical work with groups can never be more than a suggestion for learning and using "tools". creative facilitation consciously asks for the motive and examines the method with regard to the objective.

Only the conscious attitude and resulting decision-making competence in the use of certain methods as tools provides information about WHY we want to achieve certain goals in certain ways and justifiably reject other approaches.

It is ultimately about the crucial question in collaborative processes:

How do we want to live? And how do we find methods that help us to achieve goals that do not contradict our convictions, our view of humanity and democratic ideas in their approach. This may seem "banal" in our so-called western enlightened perspective. At least in theory. In practice, however, it often shows a very contrary picture as a result of our efforts to achieve the set goals. It is not banal.

It is about the development of "attitudes" of a common "milieu", which in a complex and also again and again (necessarily) unstable and thereby however living system creates a nevertheless safe balance in the relationship individual-group-environment. This necessarily includes "errors" and "dissonances" which, however, can be more easily located constructively in the process and made manageable by means of reflection and developing perception. It leads to an attitude that sees development fundamentally as a creative process.

This description, however, says nothing at all about certain values or our moral compass. It only tries to describe a PRozess. In which value system this happens is in the hand of the respective group and society. Elsewhere it will be necessary to understand that the concept of "creativity" is not a value judgment. Creativity marks from a subjective perspective development as a concrete result or/and as a way to a concrete result. But this "marking" does not say anything about whether we evaluate the marked result or the way as "good" or "bad" or "wrong" or "right". The invention of the atomic bomb finds supporters as well as opponents until today. The development of the atomic bomb is a creative act of human creative power. But do "we" as a society want such a development?

As artists, we have a certain set of methods at our disposal as a result of our artistic biography. Also possibly a partially profession-specific attitude towards development processes and research. In the responsible encounter and dialogue with groups, however, I need further tools. But first of all I have to ask myself what mission I give myself. This results in my specific role, which is reflected in a specific attitude and can be justified by me. In a dialogical process of success and failure with the group, I measure the common path against this with the permanent permission of a "course correction".

This is a brief description of what is behind "creative facilitation". The following description explains some specific details.

Creative Facilitation - respect for the group as a learning subject: The concept of Creative Facilitation as a pedagogical stance considers the group as a learning subject and - with didactic restraint - promotes individual development processes of the participants in the sense of "intervening teaching" and the intersubjective significance of the linguistic dimension as experience brought to language.